After the Orange Grove: Bad Days in Night Vale
by Sweetloot
Summary: [Part 1 of my "After the Orange Grove" Series] A brief look into what Carlos was thinking during (and a bit after) episode 38: "Orange Grove". (Contains spoilers.)


Carlos loves his work, loves working in Night Vale, loves trying to discover what makes this backwards, upside down, non reality conforming, crazy town work, he really does, but he also finds despair in the amount of danger the people that live here are in. One particular resident's well being comes to mind.

_Cecil._

Carlos worries about all of Night Vale's residents, but none so much as The Voice of Night Vale. Cecil has a precarious position in town. On the one hand, he is adored and loved by many of the people, but on the other he has the power to influence those people in ways that those of higher authority would surely disapprove of. His place in town is always on the edge of being necessary, and too much trouble to deal with. Carlos hopes it never becomes the latter.

At the end of the day (whether or not that coincides with sunset or not) when Cecil's show has ended and nothing too terrible has happened to his beloved boyfriend, Carlos sighs in relief and thanks any deity willing to listen. Those are good days.

Bad days are days like today, when The Weather is being played and his boyfriend is being attacked by a lunatic non-farmer, and Carlos is powerless to do _anything_ and just has to hope for the best. Sure, he could drive out to there, but Cecil had been adamant about Carlos staying away from the station while he was recording. It used to be because he was such a distraction to the radio host.

Once, when the old Station Management had still been around, Carlos had decided to surprise Cecil by showing up with lunch. Let's just say that their lunches had been left untouched and an aspect of their relationship that Carlos _really_ didn't want the rest of Night Vale to hear was almost broadcasted across the entire town. Since then, Carlos had been careful only to show up when the show had ended.

However since StrexCorp had bought Night Vale Community Radio, Cecil had practically begged Carlos to stay away from the station, stating that _'StrexCorp wouldn't like it'_ and the place _'just wasn't the same' _and that _'the building had a mauve kind of aura to it, you know what I mean?'_ Well, no, Carlos didn't know what Cecil had meant about that last one, but Carlos had not seen Cecil so visibly upset before, so he had promised to stay away.

That being said, it took more willpower than Carlos knew he had not to break that promise and run all the way to the radio station, consequences be damned, when Cecil's broadcast had been interrupted by Peters' attack. Carlos was half-way out the door when he heard Cecil's voice drifting back to him.

Carlos couldn't help but laugh out loud when he heard how Cecil had knocked the imposter out with his cell phone. Cecil didn't sound too worse for wear, but that didn't stop Carlos from sending a text to the possibly broken phone in hopes that it was still working and Cecil would still be able to text him back.

Carlos wanted to let all of his worry and fear he had felt for Cecil's safety go into that text, but knew that since the show was not over yet that Cecil would read the message aloud. To most of the citizen's of Night Vale, a little attack here and there was perfectly normal and not cause for alarm, but for Carlos it most certainly was and, not wanting to have that personal moment floating about the airways, just informed him of the change in their dinner arrangements. It didn't stop him from tacking on the little _'xoxo'_ to the end of it though. The emoji that followed had been an accident but at least Cecil had seemed to like it.

With Cecil's promise not to be late to dinner, Carlos went to the kitchen to heat up the left over felafels, opened the bag of nutmeg seeds to be placed in a bowl on the coffee table, and brought up Netflix on his laptop. Night Vale might be full of terrors, and most things here might be out of his control, but that won't stop him from having a nice evening in with his boyfriend. Nothing would.

* * *

Author's Note: There is a part 2 to this, but it also a stand alone piece so it hasn't been added as second chapter. If you'd life to read it, please go to my profile. It's called "What Happens Next".

Both these works have been cross posted from my AO3 account. Comments are welcomed.


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